The Survivalist (now on video)

The SHOUT! Factory video release of Stephen Fingleton’s grim, minimalist dystopian drama-thriller is an item which actually works best in the DVD/Blu-ray format - not downloads, not on a big screen, not even on good old VHS. The menu presence of a handful of related Fingleton-scripted short subjects, clearly set in the same doomsday vein as the feature (one is, in fact, the prequel), makes the whole experience complete. That it's a complete feelbad mini-spectacle, well. that's for your individual tastes.

Some viewers may note a resemblance to Hollywood's film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, with its small cast's ground-zero-eye-view of the post-apocalypse. Only an opening graphic gives the backstory, that oil and electricity have run out for mankind, cueing a massive population die-off.

Now only remnants of humanity fight it out, these particular ones in some green part of the UK (the film was Northern Ireland production, and the milieu certainly does have a tragic aura).

All Things Must Pass (screening at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival)

[ALL THINGS MUST PASS screens Thursday October 5th at 7:00 pm at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Filmmaker/actor/Hollywood royalty Colin Hanks - staying offscreen for the duration here – shows a gift for nostalgia beyond his young years as he directed ALL THINGS MUST PASS, the chronicle of Tower Records. Remember them? It was a giant music/entertainment retailer and tastemaker that seemed unstoppable  until it collapsed, seemingly overnight, at the start of the 21st century.

Founded in Sacramento as a humble scheme to sell used jukebox 45s at a Tower drugstore, the chain grew by leaps and bounds, as the initial success spurred CEO Russ Solomon to move into vending all-new vinyl LPs at prime locations on the West Coast, under the slogan “No Music No Life.”

What Hanks does quite well is show how Russ Solomon ended up one of those unsung-hero retailers who steered creative industry choices, as the artists themselves began finding their own muses via the inventory. His LA emporium, in fact, observed special hours to accommodate star shopper Elton John (John is interviewed here, as are Bruce Springsteen and David Grohl). 

24x36 (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Shown here at the 2016 Cleveland International Film Festival, director Kevin Burke's feature is now available for the small screens, so you don’t have to risk getting shot going downtown to see it. Not that the movie isn’t good – but not quite at intensive-care unit level. Which would be a pretty cool criteria for seeing a worthwhile movie, these days.

24X36 isn't the first documentary by far to dwell on the nerd-tastic topic of Hollywood movie-poster art – I recommend DREW: THE MAN BEHIND THE POSTER and THE MAN WHO DREW BUG-EYED MONSTERS - but it covers the subject nicely and comes up with a fresh 21st-century twist.

John Cleese with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Sept.27 in Playhouse Square

For some reason the media zeitgeist is making a big to-do about this being the 30^th anniversary of THE PRINCESS BRIDE. But another medieval comedy has Cleveland Movie Bloggers of a Certain Age feeling ready for the old-age home (or, around here, just another crummy minimum-wage job I’ll hold until dropping dead in my late 90s). It’s been 42 years, believe it or not, since MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL.

Now comedy legend and Python troupe alumnus John Cleese is touring live with a revival of the picture. “John Cleese and the Holy Grail” is the name of the program.

In it a screening accompanies raconteur Cleese on stage, summarizing his own wide-ranging career, genesis of the Pythons, and the making of the best-known movie spinoff from the groundbreaking BBC-TV comedy team. 

Repost: Halloween (September 21st and 22nd at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[HALLOWEEN screens Thursday September 21st at 6:45 pm and Friday September 22nd at 9:10 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Has it been 35 years? Really, THIRTY-FIVE YEARS! since I heard locker-room whispers around the NE Ohio high school I attended that there was a new movie out called HALLOWEEN, by that maverick director John Carpenter who had previously done that attention-getting, whacko low-budget science-fiction flick DARK STAR (a film-school project that had won bonus re-release to cash in the success of STAR WARS).

And HALLOWEEN was talked up by my youthful classmates as the coolest thing ever; all the guys on the football team were going to get stoned with their skank girlfriends and see it again on the weekend.

I took that rave with a slight bit of skepticism. Much as I admired DARK STAR, this was the late 1970s, remember. And Ohio kids would get stoned to go see a roadshow return engagement of THE SOUND OF MUSIC, as long as someone brought the keg and the dope and the skank girls. 

Catfight (now on video)

[CATFIGHT is now available on home video.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Though they will probably deny it, I worked for the Cleveland International Film Festival for ten years. And CATFIGHT is the sort of film-fest indie entry I came to know all too well, a guaranteed attention-getting hot ticket (well, of course it would be, as I would be writing the PR promos), with a high-concept premise and a hint of the unspeakable that would guarantee a sellout at showtime.

But after the festival, in the cold, harsh light of the mainstream marketplace…such look-at-me-ma!-I’m-a-cool-transgressive-filmmaker! stuff would just disappear into the annals. Maybe one or two copies might show up at Blockbuster (or more likely Hollywood Video, who dared try their own indie label there towards the end).

Separated from the excitement, and pretense, the hype and the ego of the film-festival scene, such movies just don’t look as special as they want to look. And such is the case with writer-director Onur Turkel's dark comedy.

Kinky Boots (August 22 and 26 at the Cleveland Museum of Art)

[KINKY BOOTS screens Tuesday August 22nd at 1:30 pm and 3:20 pm and Saturday August 26th at 7:00 pm and 8:50 pm at the Cleveland Museum of Art.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

When you consider that the alternative for shoe fetishists are crush videos, this British fairy-tale-in-more-ways-than-one is mostly harmless. And its verrrrrry gay-friendly premise got it spun off into a stage musical (naturally). Hard not to suspect director Julian Jarrold and the producers didn't have that cross-media platforming in mind from when KINKY BOOTS made its film debut in 2005.

Allegedly it's based on a true story (and comparisons to THE FULL MONTY won't end there). Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton) is a reluctant inheritor of his family's faltering shoe-factory business (est. 1895) in Northampton. Finding it antiquated and in a state of financial ruin, Charlie goes through a Cleveland-like round of painful layoffs when inspiration strikes - partially provided by Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts), the sassy working girl he's firing, partially inspired by a strapping Afro-Caribbean drag queen Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor) he accidentally encounters in London.  

Charlie, Lauren and Lola team up to re-position Price & Sons for a new niche market: cross-dressing men's shoes, or more specifically, boots. Ones with steel-reinforced stiletto heels for supporting big-and-tall transvestite's weight, a special pocket for a riding-crop, and a bright red veneer. "Red...the color of sex!" Lola exults.

True-crime Documentary Double-Feature Really Slays 'Em in Gordon Square, August 13.

Used to be every Friday the 13th, Paramount would have ready another cheapjack Jason Vorhees slasher-horror movie to open. Well, on Sunday the 13th a very different couple of murder stories will appear at the Capitol Theatre in Cleveland's Gordon Square arts district on the west side.

Mark Wade Stone and his Storyworks production company have been making local-interest documentaries for years, some in association with charismatic true-crime author/lecturer James Badal. Both will be in attendance at special 4 p.m. matinee of malice, spotlighting historic Cleveland crime (besides the records of the sports teams) on the big screen.

Making Little Movies Great Again, The Indie Gathering in Hudson August 10-13

Let us now examine some of the bloated cinematic corpses from the movie year of 2017. Nobody much wanted to see the live-action GHOST IN THE SHELL. Or Universal Picture's second (count 'em) reboot of THE MUMMY, as a Tom Cruise actionfest. The once-unsinkable PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN sequels stumbled with number five, and movie spoofs of BAYWATCH and CHiPS saw quick cancellation!

Finally...THE EMOJI MOVIE. Bob Ignizio actually saw that one and didn't even bother to review it. There can be no lower praise.

With all that waste of millions in resources, time and talent, how about a film festival that really celebrates the struggling indies of the world, bravely getting entertainment done on a shoestring budget.

The Indie Gathering, held annually in the late summer at the Clarion Inn of Hudson, upholds local/international `microcinema' – shorts and features done by independent filmmakers, today most often working (and working wonders sometimes) in digital video.

Dope Island: Exclusive Advance Directors Cut of War for the Planet of the Apes!

Excerpt from "Felix Doubles for Darwin" from 1924, but of course you all knew that already. Some days I can't remember whether it was Felix the Cat or Gumby who had the Blockheads as token villains. That ever happen to you?

Harmontown (now on video)

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Somehow, among all of the other things I missed while frantically working several jobs to make up for lowering income and higher cost of living here in the magic land of endless Recession, was an NBC-TV sitcom called Community. It apparently had quite a cult following (reminiscent of another low-rated NBC property, Star Trek), and now there's filmmaker Neil Berkeley’s HARMONTOWN, something very near Community: The Motion Picture. But watching it again made me feel like I came late to a party to which I was never invited (a familiar feeling).

HARMONTOWN is a portrait of Dan Harmon, a TV comedy auteur, respected by his peers (here Ben Stiller, Sarah Silverman, Patton Oswalt, Jack Black) despite his oddball, domineering personality and possible alcoholism. Harmon created Community, which, during a low-rated run, amassed fans whose letter-writing campaigns strove to keep it on the air. At one point Harmon was fired from his own show after a public tiff with cast member Chevy Chase.

Thus, the frustrated Harmon started podcasts and a live stage show, "Harmontown," that blended unrehearsed monologues, guests, and Dungeons & Dragons sessions. It rallied even more self-declared misfits to his side.

Easy Rider (June 27 at the Auto-Rama Twin Drive-In)

[EASY RIDER screens Tueaday June 27th at the Aut-O-Rama Drive-In.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

In his invaluable movie history Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, author Peter Biskind examined the making of 1969’s EASY RIDER, an iconographic picture whose box-office success made it the surprise of 1969, and a milestone that wound up defining the whole decade. Biskind could not conclude who - if anybody – actually directed it.

Dennis Hopper got onscreen credit. Volatile co-star Peter Fonda certainly shaped it. And the co-screenwriter, satirical writer-journalist Terry Southern, was definitely involved. Other sources say editor Donn Cambern scissored down Hopper’s original four-hour cut, and that Henry Jaglom assisted.

But the whole film shoot (on a project that Roger Corman rejected, so it bounced to Columbia Pictures) was a haphazard, drug-disoriented affair, and the film shoot happened concurrent with the national trauma of the RFK assassination. Ultimately, Biskind writes, it's impossible to say who made EASY RIDER. It just kind of...happened. Or God directed it.

Twilight Zone: The Movie (June 23 at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE screens Friday June 23rd at 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Rod Serling’s revered TV half-hour anthology The Twilight Zone, aired originally from 1959 to 1965, told different sci-fi and fantasy-tinged morality plays each week. It’s long shadow inspired this Warner Brothers big-budget movie anthology that made its theatrical debut in 1983 – an era when the blockbuster box-office returns of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg fantasias led the entertainment rackets to lavishly remake, relaunch and reboot all the way-out properties they owned the rights to. Whether the studios “got it” or not.

Three parts of the four installments in TWILIGHT ZONE – THE MOVIE remake favorite TZ episodes, but the first, directed by John Landis (hot after AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON) is an original. It's about a bigoted businessman (Vic Morrow), ranting about losing a job promotion to a Jew, who instantly finds himself cruelly knocked about the whole 20th century, suffering the same persecutions as blacks in the Jim Crow South, Jews in the Holocaust, and Indochinese during the Vietnam War. This was the featurette in which actor Morrow (and two child actors) died in an on-camera accident, perishing beneath a crashing helicopter while filming the Vietnam section. The horrific waste made even more disappointing by the segment itself, a one-note bashing of a nasty guy that feels like something whipped up by slumming liberal Hollywood film-school students.

Monterey Pop (June 17th and 18th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[MONTERY POP screens Saturday June 17th at 7:05 pm and Sunday June 18th at 4:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Music (and film) producer Lou Adler, who helped stage the Monterey International Pop Festival, proudly boasted that a "phenomenal" 1,100 media people covered the event (press arrangement handled by the ex-publicist for the Beatles), thus guaranteeing that the weekend of June 16-18, 1967 would go

down in history as the apex of the "Summer of Love." From that mix of cultural revolution, undeniable talent, and stage-managed corporate hype came MONTEREY POP, first in a cycle of widely-released,

mass-audience "rockumentaries."

The feature directed by D.A. Pennebaker skims highlights of the three-day, 33-act festival. First the hippie music fans arrive, one predicting that the concert in Monterey, California, will be "a love-in...like Easter, Christmas and your birthday all at once!" Even the many police patrolling the Monterey County Fairgrounds are shown smiling benignly.

Can You Check Out Any Time But You Can Never Leave...Horror Hotel in Hudson? June 15 - June 18

Event preview by Charles Cassady, Jr.

At the annual installment of the International Horror Hotel Festival & Convention, you can see a short subject called DICKEATERS: THE MOVIE. Wouldn't it be worth it alone, to say you did that?

After all, the Cavaliers lost; might as well have some takeaway for 2017.

Horror Hotel is an early-summer offshoot of The Indie Gathering, a long-running series of meetings and networking expositions and festivals put on by and for DIY Ohio filmmakers. The Indie Gathering upholds "microcinema," ultra-low budget moviemaking outside the big film-industry system.

The Indie Gathering has a big annual international film festival in Hudson, Ohio, in early fall. But from the submissions that were coming in, the organizers - stunt coordinator Ray Szuch and actress-producer Kristina Michelle, of Cleveland - noticed that backyard filmmakers around the world most often gravitated horror and science-fiction genre shorts and features.

Repost: Stalker (June 15th and 17th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[STALKER screens Thursday June 15th at 6:45 pm and Saturday June 17th at 8:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Okay, this is emperor-has-no-clothes time. Where I must throw mud on some world-cinema masterpiece everyone else reveres. No wonder my rare job interviews never lead anywhere. All some venal boss or human-resource harridan has to do is Google my writing, see the evidence, and broadband their shocked verdict to the world: "CHARLES CASSADY THAT UGLY M*@%!KER DIDN'T LIKE TARKOVSKY'S STALKER THE F&^!@ING SON OF A WHORE! NOBODY F%@!*ING HIRE THE BASTARD FOR ANYTHING! THAT'S A F#%*!ING DIRECT ORDER." And that's just when I apply at the Catholic Diocese.

Repost: Weird Science (June 6th at the Aut-O-Rama Drive-In)

[WEIRD SCIENCE screens Tuesday June 6th at 11:45 pm at the Aut-O-Rama Drive-In.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Adolescent audiences eagerly flocked to it, critics hated John Hughes' WEIRD SCIENCE when it premiered in 1984 (what was I doing? Lots and lots of college homework, you know, for that career and the good jobs that I was never going to have). The persnickety movie-scribe establishment including Hughes supporters like Roger Ebert, took the movie as an almost personal betrayal by writer-director Hughes, whose 16 CANDLES, PRETTY IN PINK and THE BREAKFAST CLUB seemed to save society from many PORKY'S-inspired lowbrow 1980s youth comedies that were all about teen sex and revenge-pranks.

To them, Hughes was a cinematic messiah and master of mass-audience Teen Comedy-Dramas With Heart and Soul. Until WEIRD SCIENCE, of course, that suddenly dove head-first into exaggerated juvie sex references and revenge-pranks, taking full advantage of the newly created PG-13 rating.

Here is what the critics forgot (but which I probably could have told them, if I weren't busy doing lots of college studies and homework, you know, for that career and the good jobs I was never going to get. Have I neglected to mention that yet?):

Repost: Airplane! (June 2nd at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[AIRPLANE! screens Saturday June 2nd at 9:30 pm and midnight and Sunday June 3rd at 7:00 pm at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Being older than dirt (poorer, too), I can remember when the original AIRPLANE! came out. Critics who earned even bigger paychecks in 1980 than I would ever get 30 years later, they practically all copied from each other (and to think, cut-and-paste off the internet barely existed then except at some elite military installations) in lumping the hit comedy-parody in with NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE and MEATBALLS and STRIPES as among the popular "slob comedies," of extreme rude behavior, beer and boobs and low-class buffoon-hedon heroes triumphing over snobs and authorities.

Repost: Saturday Night Fever (Special Fathom Events screening May 7th and 10th)

[SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER screens Sunday May 7th and Wednesday May 10th at 2:00pm and 7:00pm in select area theaters.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

*Note* - this review is of the original theatrical cut and its alternative PG version. The version of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER being shown at this special screening is a brand-new director's cut.

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER was a runaway hit that became such an icon of its 1970s disco-music milieu that the white costume John Travolta wore in the dance-contest finale is now on permanent exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution (after being famously owned by film critic Gene Siskel). But viewers with childhood memories of the blockbuster might have forgotten (especially with the alternate version; more on that later) that this movie is no fluffy song-and-dance or a plot-lite MTV collection of pop fantasy like FLASHDANCE. Rather, it's a tough and serious-minded drama about restless, sometimes violent young men on the sordid side of New York City. You remove all the dancing  from SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and you'd still be left with a sturdy, well-acted production (but it sure wouldn't be the same).

Tea With Mussolini (April 20th and 22nd at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[TEA WITH MUSSOLINI screens Thursday April 20th at 8:30 pm and Saturday April 22nd at 7:10 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

In 1999, Cher went the Merchant-Ivory route in TEA WITH MUSSOLINI, a very proper, genteel drama, said to be based on incidents in the early life of the UK-Italian co-production’s director, Franco Zeffirelli.

No, Cher does not attempt an English accent, but appropriately plays a flamboyant American showgirl-turned-gold-digger, part of a mini-society of high-born ladies hanging around the piazzas of Florence, Italy, in the 1930s. Mostly English aristocrats - and mostly acted by grandes dammes of British drama such as Joan Plowright and Judi Dench - these aged Italophiles drink tea, throw parties, have affairs, pamper their dogs/children, visit Roman ruins, restore art frescoes, and otherwise have it pretty easy.  Until the rise of strutting Nazi ally Benito Mussolini drags their precious Italy into fascism.